"Yes, my poor Armida may have been entrapped by them." "And if entrapped, what then ?" "Then they would kill her with as little compunction as they would a fly," he said.

"Ah! you do not know the callousness of those people.

I only hope and pray that she may have escaped and is in hiding somewhere, and will arrive unexpectedly and give me a startling surprise.

She delights in startling me," he added with a laugh.
Poor fellow, I thought, she would never again be able to startle him.
She had actually fallen a victim just as he dreaded.
"Then you think she must have been called away from home by some urgent message ?" I suggested.
"By the manner in which she left things, it seemed as though she went away hurriedly.

There were five sovereigns in a drawer that we had saved for the rent, and she took them with her." I paused again, hesitating whether to tell him the terrible truth.